Beyond the Shadow of Adults—Youth, Adultism, and Human Rights in the Contemporary Faroe Islands

This article discusses young people’s human rights situation in the Faroe Islands today by addressing youth participation issues from a cultural adultism perspective. It argues that the local cultural values and intergenerational relations in the family influence the multilayered and shifting nature...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social Sciences
Main Author: Firouz Gaini
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024
Subjects:
H
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13020098
https://doaj.org/article/b086b67347d94d79941656f1d86466d1
Description
Summary:This article discusses young people’s human rights situation in the Faroe Islands today by addressing youth participation issues from a cultural adultism perspective. It argues that the local cultural values and intergenerational relations in the family influence the multilayered and shifting nature of ‘Faroese adultism’. My purpose is to explore the ways through which young people are challenging adultism in their everyday life practices: what do they intend to change and what do they wish to sustain in their cultural struggle? This article is mainly based on empirical data from focus group discussions with young participants. The findings reveal that young people from the Faroe Islands—located in the Nordic Atlantic—do not consider adultism to have a negative impact on their wellbeing. This article, relying on theoretical scholarship and ideas from youth studies and island studies, contributes to a more nuanced understanding of human rights in the context of a small (family-oriented) island community in cultural and social transformation.